Locked On Mariners - Daily Podcast On the Seattle Mariners - Victor Robles' Suspension Reduced to 7 Games + How a Division Rival Could Help the Mariners

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Ty and Colby discuss Victor Robles' suspension being reduced to seven games, who the Mariners could add when rosters expand on Monday, potential waiver claims from the Rangers, and more.Check out our Patreon!Follow the show on Twitter: @LO_Mariners | @TyDaneGonzalez | @CPat11Follow the show on Bluesky: @lockedonmariners | @tdg | @mlbcolbyLocked On Podcast Network listener surveySupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!5-Hour ENERGYTime to fuel up and turn it up with 5-hour ENERGY®️ Transfusion! Go to https://5hourenergy.com today and use my promo code LOCKEDONGOLF to receive 20% off your order. This offer is only valid until September 30th on one order and cannot be used with other promotions. The code is not good on subscription orders.  Supply HouseJoin the TradeMaster program today at SupplyHouse.com/TM and start ordering plumbing, HVAC, and electrical supplies with just a few clicks. Plus, use promo code S-H-5 for 5% off your first order. That’s SupplyHouse.com!OpenPhoneStreamline and scale your customer communications with OpenPhone. Get 20% off your first 6 months at www.openphone.com/lockedonmlbGameday HueLet your colors talk—because colors speak louder than words. Right now, you can get 15% off with code MLB15 at GamedayHue.com. Monarch MoneyTake control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use code LOCKEDONMLB at monarchmoney.com/lockedonmlb for 50% off your first year.GametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONMLB for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelRight now, new customers can get ONE HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS when your first FIVE DOLLAR BET WINS! Download the app or head to FANDUEL.COM to get started. Bet with FanDuel—Official Partner of the NBA.FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Victor Robles' suspension has been reduced to seven games. We'll discuss how the Marys can maneuver that as they kick off a three series road trip tonight in Cleveland. Colby, hit it. You are Locked-on Mariners. Your daily Seattle Mariners podcast. Part of the Locked-on Podcast Network, your team every day. Ahoy, Sailors. It is Friday, August 29th, 2025.

This is Tuddin'Az and Colby Patnaud for the Lockdown Marys Podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. This episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Take control of your finances with Monarch Money. Use the promo code Locked-on MLB. That's L-O-C-K-D-O-N-M-L-B at Monarch money. For 50% off your first year. And as always, if you want to hear from me and Colby even more

and help support the show, you can check out our Patreon. All you have to do to check that out is click the link in the description of this episode. So on today's show, we'll get you set for the Marra's upcoming series with the Guardians this weekend and we'll also talk a little bit about the Rangers who are beat up and can potentially offload a few pieces onto waivers in the next day. But we're actually going to start here talking a little bit about Victor Robles, who finally had his suspension appeal heard today and got that suspension reduced from 10 to 7 games. So he's not even going to miss this entire road trip. It'll be eligible to return on September 6 against the Atlanta Braves. So that's awesome. And the Mariners are only going to go.

going to have to operate with 25 men on their roster for three games before rosters expand to 28 league-wide. The Marers can obviously expand to 27 on September 1st. So this worked out pretty well for the Marys overall, but I'm curious when they get to September 1st here, which will be the start of their upcoming series with the Rays. What do they do? Do they add two position players because they're missing Robles? Do they still just add a position player and a pitcher who specifically are those players?

Colby, what do you think? Yeah, it's a little tough to say. I think you probably should add two position players. I don't know there's anybody in the org who on the pitching side of things who is demanding a call-up right now. I mean, it's pretty bleak. I guess Michael Fulmer, who they recently brought in, could be a guy to keep an eye on here. I know he's pitched a couple of times. So it could be a guy like Fulmer, and that would make some sense because you're taking a shot.

And it doesn't really cost you anything to take that shot. And if you can get, you know, the Michael Fulmer we saw a couple years ago for even a month, that would be massive. So maybe it is Fulmer as a pitcher. I guess that would make some sense. You know, offensively, you're covered in the outfield. you have your four outfielders, but because Rayleigh and Canzon are so similar, maybe you want a right-handed hitting outfielder to kind of platoon with those guys. And I mean, I still don't think the Mariners have a very good plan or idea of how those two are going to,

you know, divvy up at bats. They have been giving, you know, before Robles returned, Canzone would just play against the lefties. So I imagine that's what we'll see tonight with Logan Allen on the mound. But, yeah. So the Mariners don't really have a, a, you know, really interesting right-handed hitting outfield prospect ready to go. The closest thing would probably be Samad Taylor, who, you know, we've seen,

and he's had a very nice year down there in Tacoma, but the Mariners had just had multiple opportunities to give this guy a chance, and they just really haven't. So I don't know if that's something they want to do. It's also worth noting that, you know, the call-up or the extra player could be somebody not in the org right now. I would say that's unlikely at this stage, but there's, still is a couple of days left for teams to place players on waivers and for teams to claim them and still have them for their playoff push and in the playoffs themselves if they so want.

So there's probably a few names we can talk about there. But inside the org, you know, I think it should be Harry Ford. I think it should be Leo Rivas, one of those guys. It may be somewhere down the line it is. But for now in the short term, it seems like Samad Taylor is the closest, you know, doppelganger you can find in the org right now to what Victor Robles was giving you. So Samad Taylor makes some sense on September 1st.

I don't think he'll be here for quite a long time. I still think Leo Rivas makes the most sense, though. Overall, especially with the continued struggles now of Cole Young over the last couple of weeks. And J.B. Crawford, it'd be nice to give them days off and go with a guy who's getting on base at a ridiculous amount in AAA. So I still like Rivas and Harry Ford giving him some experience before you probably want to have a third catcher on your playoff, Ross.

I think that calling him up makes a lot of sense, but you don't have to do that right away. So, yeah, if I had to guess, I would say maybe Michael Fulmer, they give that a shot for a couple weeks in September, and then they call up Samad Taylor to kind of play the Victor Robles role. And then we'll see how it goes, but obviously Victor will get added back. And then I think at that point, Samad Taylor gets sent back down.

And that's when you could see somebody like a Leo Rivas get recalled, because, again, he makes more sense in the short term than Harry Ford, but I wouldn't rule out for getting a cup of coffee late in September to kind of get his feet wet if they do indeed plan on carrying three catchers on their playoff roster, which we talked about yesterday, the way that they use Mitch Garber against lefties, they should carry three catchers on their path. Yeah, I think it should be Harry Ford.

You know, Logan Allen is the only lefty that they're facing, I think, on this entire road trip. if I'm not mistaken. They get Chris Dale in it. Okay. But is that after Robles returns? Yes, I believe that is the day that Robles is eligible. Yeah, so I'm not sure how important they'll view having a righty outfielder on the roster

in Robles's absence. I think if they do go with two position players, it might actually wind up being Rivas and Miles Masterbony. Because right now, according to Dan Wilson, and your backups at shortstop and third base are, well, at shortstop is your starting second baseman in Cole Young, and at third base at Stonovitz-Lano.

Yikes. So Master Boney has obviously played a bit of third for this club this year. He's looked fine doing it. He can go out into the outfield in an emergency situation, pinched run, etc. Rivas, why isn't he on the roster already? Talked about this. So, yeah, absolutely.

should be Rebos for at least one of the spots, I would say. And then the other spot I would go with Harry Ford. But if I had to guess, it would probably either be Master Boni or Michael Fulmer, like you said. Or maybe it's Ligamina or Lough. Yeah. I mean, the thing with Bomer is you can put him on the 40 man before the deadline and have him up and then give him a couple outings. And if it doesn't work, Legamina and Lough are still in the org and you can just go get them whenever. So yeah, it's as far as loud goes, by the way, since he was just recently sent down, would his 10 days be up by the time that they expand rosters? I don't think so. No. Does that still apply to rosters expanding? Do they still have to wait for 10 days? I think you can call up anybody on your 40 man. Yeah. But I'm not 100% sure on that. I don't think it's going to come up. But yeah, I'm not 100% sure on the what rules get suspended for the September callups. But.

Yeah. Yeah. Again, there's just not a lot of options for arms to call up. And it feels like all their best ones are probably already on the major league roster, which they don't have 13 good ones. So that's woof. Yeah. Sure would be nice.

If a couple of teams, we'll put some guys on waivers. So, yeah. It's still a big question mark for me. It's that bullpen. And I just don't see the arms. I mean, like, you want to put files in. or Cleveland on the 40 man and call them up. Hobbs.

Yeah, like I guess fine, but, you know, throwing them into the mix in the middle of a playoff race, uh, it's, it's pretty risky, but you might not have a choice because the other options aren't very good either. So, you know,

uh, we'll see what they want to do, but, uh, yeah, Rivas should be up by now already. Um, and you just make so much sense with,

especially since Cole Young has, is, is really been bad. over the last couple of weeks. JP Crawford's not exactly letting up the box score either. So having a guy who you can actually play at second base regularly and, you know, take some pressure off of Cole Young and let him work on some things. Seems pretty valuable right now.

I mean, Leo Rivas and his 480 on base percentage in the number nine spot makes a lot more sense than Cole Young who is struggling with pop-ups right now, a lot of pop-ups in Cole Young. So we'll see what they want to do. But yeah, I mean, for now, they're just playing a man down. And by September 1st, there could be one or two new players in the org, depending on how waivers go and who gets waived and all that. So we'll see. We won't really have a good idea on this for another three days.

But yeah, I think rosters expand. I think it'll be Palmer, would be my guess. And then I think the bat would probably be Taylor. for a couple days, but maybe not because like you said, they won't be facing any lefties at least in the rotation. Yeah, so I just don't know how important they view that or they would view that.

Yeah, so we'll see what they do. But if I had to guess, I guess I'd probably go Fulmer and I guess I'll go Rivas because they aren't facing many lefties until Robles gets back. Yeah. Well, like you said, hopefully a couple of these teams will put some of their

guys on waivers. The mayors can get better that way. The Rangers are a team. Everyone is looking at right now, waiting for them to make a move on that front. We'll talk about them in just a moment, but first a reminder, this episode of the Locktime Airs podcast is brought to you by Upside.

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That's promo code S EASON. Offers vary by user and location. Go to upside.com for terms and conditions. And you're listening to the Lockdown Merritt's podcast for Insom Reactions following every Mariner's game. Be sure to tune in to the Marriss Postcast with Anderson Hearst and Christopher Crawford, available on both the Lockdown Merritt's YouTube and podcast. feeds. Lockdown has also put together a survey to learn more about our listeners, make your favorite podcasts even better. Go to Lockdown Podcast.com slash survey to get started. Everyone who completes

a survey will be entered for a chance to win one of $10, $100 Amazon gift cards. Either scan the QR code on the screen or click the link in the description. So the Rangers are in a rough spot at this point. They're positioned in the standing. hasn't really changed since they added at the deadline. They've now lost Nathan Avaldi and Marcus Simeon and Corey Seeger. It's about time for them to wave the white flag, I would think. And a lot of teams are kind of anxiously awaiting for them to do so because they have quite a few guys that they could place on waivers here

in order to get back under the luxury tax threshold that could really help some contending teams, including your Seattle Mariners. So we're talking about Merrill Kelly, Phil Maton, Patrick Corbin, Chris Martin, Sean Armstrong, Hobie Milner, even Adola Garcia. So who of those names, Colby, interests you the most? None of them. Definitely one of the bullpen arms. No. I think now the other thing you have to consider is how many of them even get to the Mariners in the way.

order and the lower their salary is, the less likely they are to get to you. So you have to back for all that in. So how does it work? Let's talk about that real quick. So yeah, these waivers work a little bit different than normal waivers or DFAs. The claim starts with the worst record. The claim order starts with the worst record in the same league that the team waving the player is in.

So for the Rangers, that means the American League teams get first crack at them. and the waiver order goes from best, from worst record down to the best record. So in terms of playoff teams, Seattle would actually have the highest waiver priority of all the teams currently in the playoffs. Now, it seems like,

you know, the rays or the guardians or the royals might claim players just to block the marriage from getting some, but those teams are also very, very cheap. So they might not want to claim, you know, a million dollars this late in the year

and just to stop the marriage from getting a guy who might throw 10 innings for them. So it's one of those things where there's a lot of factors that go into play here. But yes, anybody the Rangers specifically would put place on waivers, there's a decent chance they would get to the Mariners before they would have an opportunity to claim them. So not a guarantee, but there's a pretty decent chance. So, you know, that being said, it's got to be the relievers for the for the Rangers. They have pretty good bullpen.

Phil Maiton, I know he's been bad recently, but really good season. He's a veteran. He's been there. He's pitching a lot of big games. That's a guy that makes a lot of sense. Chris Martin, kind of the same thing, but Martin's hurt right now. So he's working his way back. They think he'll be able to pitch this year and pretty soon as well. But that's kind of one of those ones where you have to trust your doctors and all that and trust the medicals. So it's a bit of a risk there. But I think the relievers are pretty easily. the thing here. If they place Merrill Kelly on waivers,

I think you have to claim him. You're only going to pay him a million bucks, give or take, for the rest of the year. Right now, he is better than Miller. He is better than Luis Castillo. And I would much rather give him the ball in a playoff start

that either of those two guys, based on what we've seen recently. And again, it doesn't cost that much. A million bucks is nothing. If you get one, playoff start out of him, you've already made, you know, more than a million bucks just from being in that game. So, yeah, I think, you know, Kelly should be, like, if he gets to them, yes, absolutely do it.

Put Miller in the pen for the rest of the year. And then there's kind of your bullpen edition, right? You just, okay, kill two birds with one stone. I know PETA doesn't like when we say that. But, yeah, it's just one of those things. Kelly, so I guess technically Kelly should be like the prize here. but, you know, I don't know if they're going to, I don't know if they're going to waive him or not. So, Maton, definitely, Martin, definitely. Those guys can help you. And you desperately, desperately need some depth and some length in your bullpen.

And the Rangers have a couple of guys who could provide that for you. So the marins are actually in a pretty good spot. Again, the royals are kind of the big obstacle there. But I do think they will be. able to have the opportunity to claim at least one of these guys that the Rangers potentially wave um Sean Armstrong is someone that I'm really interested in because obviously that's someone that the mayors are very familiar with this front office is very familiar with uh 9-52 case per 9 this year 265 walks per 9 250 ERA 310 uh FIP he's been worth a win this year

Sean Armstrong is quietly having a very good year out of the Rangers bullpen. Hobie Miller has been death to lefties. So if you want to add another lefty to the pen, that would be a great one. Pretty good against Redis, too, if I'm recalling correctly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And even if it's not Merrill Kelly and you're looking for a starter here, if they wave Patrick Corbyn, Patrick Corbyn, if I'm not mistaken, has had a pretty good year. I don't know if he's falling off recently. He's, he's at a negative B-war, but the overall numbers are pretty good. Like, he's probably better than Bryce Miller right now.

Yeah, his numbers have regressed a bit. So that's the last time I looked into. him. So that's on me. But yeah, 749 case per 9, 295, walks per 9, 433 ARA, 427 FIP. His last

his last time out, he went eight innings against the Angels, scoreless ball. Again, the important thing to keep in mind here, when we talk about all these guys, the Mariners have been running through some kind of rotation of Taylor Sos

Sato and Saurin Lough and Jackson Co. R. They've had use two of those guys. All right. They've had two of those guys in their bullpen for pretty much the entire year. They just kind of circle through. There is plenty of room to add multiple arms

via waivers and, you know, honestly, if you can prevent the Astros from picking up any of these guys. That's another big thing. Yeah, that's another big aspect of this. Same thing with like the Yankees, the Red Sox. Right, exactly. You can stop these guys from being

used against you in the playoffs and decide. Yeah. We can't claim. same five guys. I mean, like, you can. There's nothing saying you can't. Will they? Probably not, but I think they'd be stupid not to. Like, because when you add up all these salaries, like let's say, let's say they actually waive just hypothetically, right? Obviously not going to happen. They wave Milner, Kelly, Martin, Mayton, Armstrong, right? Those guys, their combined salary that you would have to pay them is going to be like two, three million bucks. Yeah.

before. And it's like, those guys are all going to be on your playoff roster. They're all, they all have easy guys to like knock off the roster. It's not like, oh, I don't know how we fit Sean Armstrong into this roster. It's like Taylor Soss Sato is pitching for you right now. No offense, sauce, but like you're not it this year. Sean Armstrong is. Like there's plenty of room for these guys.

And again, you can prevent. And, you know, maybe you'll, okay, we'll let Mayton slide through because he's struggling and he can go be able to with the Astros. but we're not going to let the Astros get, you know, Chris Martin and Hobie Milner. No, it's not going to happen. So I would like Seattle to be aggressive. They were aggressive in adding payroll at the deadline. I think they should be aggressive here now on this August deadline. But again, it's all on the Rangers.

Do they want to wave these guys again? They should. But will they? But will they? I don't know. We'll see. Yeah, but if they do, I mean, this could be a gift. this could be a saving grace for the Mariners after they you know obviously they crush it at the deadline going out and getting josh neler and a yuanyosuras but then on deadline day they they chose not to do the extra thing that they needed to do and that was add another bullpen arm on top of caleb ferguson a more impactful bullpen arm than caleb ferguson they didn't do that they tried with deron didn't get him but apparently ferguson was their pivot quote unquote that was not a good enough pivot from yon deron deron

second yeah uh so yeah if you're able to get a sean armstrong or you know a film mayton or a danny cullone hoby milner whoever right uh that would be huge cannot be over sit it that would be huge for this club all right so the marries are kicking off three game series with the guardians in cleveland starting a night i'll talk about that in just a moment but first reminder this episode of the locked on marries podcast is once again brought to you by monarch money ever check your bank account and wonder where did all my money go between dining out online shopping and entertainment it's easy to lose track that's where monarch money comes in your personal cfo giving you full visibility and control over your finances monarch money isn't just a budgeting app it's a complete financial command center you can track all your accounts investments and spending in one place so you stop just managing your money and start building wealth instead of juggling multiple apps you can use monarch to check your finance track spending and even plan long-term goals. Managing money with your partner is smoother than ever.

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Again, he is the only lefty you're going to see in this series. Logan Gilbert against Gavin Williams tomorrow and then Bryce Miller against Tanner Bybee on Sunday. Which of these matchups stands out the most? most to you. It's a pretty good matchups. Tonight's is the one you're most likely to win. I would say you have a clear advantage, although, you know, recent success notwithstanding the Mariners

against left-handed pitching, you know, so we'll see there, but this is the biggest talent gap. Gavin Williams versus Logan Gilbert's the most fun one. It's a great one. Really good pitchers. Now, we'll see what version of Logan Gilbert you get. That's kind of skews everything because who knows, you might get crappy Logan Gilbert, which is happening about

60% of the time right now. So who knows. And then, you know, the Sunday matchup is, interesting because it's kind of like two like dark horse Cy Young candidates entering the year who have just had terrible years. They've been bad this year. So it's kind of like a get right game for both of them. I would say in the hierarchy, I trust Bryce Miller the least. So it feels like the two games you want to win are Friday and Saturday. But in terms of the most interesting pitching matchup, it's probably Saturdays. That's a really fun matchup. And we'll see how it goes.

Again, Logan, it's really tough to count on anything from Logan right now. But he is coming off of his best start. And he does have an extra day's rest. So hopefully you can get six. It doesn't necessarily have to strike out 13. But if you can go six and give you one or two, then you have an opportunity here at the guardians bullpen is not quite as scary after some developments call them indiscretions

from the big guy in the back end so yeah we'll see I mean Cleveland's still kind of a rough matchup for you they're athletic they run around a little bit Stephen Kwan they make a lot of contact which we know the mayor's really struggled to put guys away with two strikes Cleveland's really good at that so you know it's not an ideal matchup for Seattle but they do I would say the pitching matchups favor them in at least two of these three games, but you got to produce and we got to see the offense has to carry over what they did.

And hopefully it's not just relying on the three run home run. But if they get them, great, but not necessarily needing them to score all your runs. So we'll see how it goes. Julio back out on the road as well. He's hit much better away from the, oh, you know what? It's also the homecoming of Josh Naylor. Yeah, it is. It is. Yeah, he'll get to see his, he'll get to see his brother tonight. Nails is going to hit three bombs this weekend.

You know, this Guardian's team is really heavily relying upon pitching. You know, it's Stephen Kwan and Jose Ramirez offensively. Cala Manzardo a little bit. He started to turn around. But for the most part of this offense, not great. It's not great. So this is an offense that, you know, guys like Logan Gilbert should have some success against. But really, when it comes to Logan this year, specifically 20, 25 Logan Gilbert, I'm just like, can you give me six and three earn runs? And then with Bryce, can you give me five and three earn runs? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even tonight, Kirby's not exactly been the model of consistency this year either. Yeah, so we'll see.

Yeah, we'll see. But, yeah, obviously that like you said, without Class A in the bullpen, this is. is a less scary guardians bullpen they still got some guys they still got some dudes obviously kate smith is a big name in there hunter gattis very good as well so it's it's an interesting series and this is an opportunity for the mariners to

officially put the guardians to bed i think you can make an argument that they're already done but you can officially just kind of be done with them if you you know take two or three or even sweep them here yeah so uh and this is a great opportunity to stack some wins on this road trip in general. Again, going up against three mediocre

teams. It also just be nice to play well on the road. Yeah, so this is a series that they should win. This is a series that they're absolutely capable of sweeping, even with Miller pitching in the last game. So, yeah, we'll see if they can get it done and

hopefully they can get some help from the Tigers as far as the royals go and they can lower that magic number a bit more by the time that they head down to Florida to face the rays in that minor league ballpark. All right. That is going to do it for us. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Locktime Marrars podcast. For Colby Pat node, I'm Ted and Gazzalas.

Be sure to give us a follow on Twitter at L.O underscore Marrers. You can follow me at Tedding Gonzalez and Colby at C-Pat 11. That's C-PAT-1. We're also on Blue Sky. You can follow me at TDG. Colby at MLB, Colby, and the show at Lockdown Mariners. You can also find us on Instagram at Lockdown Marinerers. have yourself a beautiful baseball day and we'll see you next time peace